1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique of authentication printing process that allows a printing operation only on completion of a preset authentication operation.
2. Description of the Related Art
Implementation of the personal information protection law and tendency of the enhanced internal control increasingly attract attention in management of classified information from companies and organizations. In the case of printing classified information, when a printing apparatus is located away from a terminal operated by a user to give a print instruction, there is a risk that a printout of the classified information may be leaked to a third person before the user reaches the location of the printing apparatus. An authentication printing system has been proposed as a countermeasure against this potential problem to suspend a printing operation after the user's print instruction and allow the actual printing operation only upon successful authentication of the user on the side of the printing apparatus by the printing apparatus or a printer server (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-259012).
The printing apparatus may be equipped with a nonvolatile storage medium, such as a hard disk drive, to temporarily store print data in the printing process. The nonvolatile storage medium may be designed to be detachable from the printing apparatus. The detachment of the nonvolatile storage medium from the printing apparatus may, however, cause leakage of print data. Some techniques have been proposed as the countermeasures against such potential for information leakage, for example, a technique of encrypting data in the nonvolatile storage medium (see, for example, JP-A-No. 2006-146665) and a technique of providing a print mode without using the nonvolatile storage medium (see, for example, JP-A-No. 2006-341496).
These prior art techniques, however, require the specific functions on the printing apparatus. It is thus difficult to provide the authentication printing system with little possibility of information leakage in a network including a printing apparatus without such specific functions.